The Gully Snipe (The Dual World Book 1) (38 page)

Once into the occupied streets, Gully whispered to his friends, “That was easier than expected. We are safe and can move about in our own leisure now.” In the back of his mind, however, he wondered why there were no guards.

Farther into the city, the streets grew more crowded, and Gully linked his arm through Thaybrill’s, keeping him close and safe so they could not be inadvertently, or purposefully, separated. The action caused Thaybrill to look up into Gully’s face for a moment in surprise, until he understood the reason behind the familiarity. Gully could see the comforted smile of the prince from under the thick hood hiding him from everyone.

Gully led them to Roald’s apartment, but rather than enter from the front steps, he took them to the backside of the apartment where there was a narrow and smelly, but private, alley. He helped the prince climb up onto a ledge on a wall, then over it and onto the top of the steps where they could enter the apartment without being seen and without drawing attention from anyone passing along on the street.

Inside, Gully said, “It is not much, Prince Thaybrill, but now we are safe to wait.”

Gully explained that he was not sure when Roald would return from his watch, so they made themselves comfortable. He scrounged some coins from a hiding place that Roald had at the back of the larder and gave them to Gallun and Gellen. They had been to Lohrdanwuld before and he asked them to go buy some things before the market closed down for the day so that they could have a dinner while they waited.

After the twins left, Gully stoked the fire in the fireplace and the prince threw himself into a chair next to the door. The prince asked, “So, we are here in the city, Bayle. You have led well, but what are we to do now? I feel helplessly lost as to how to stop what is in motion by those seeking the destruction of Iisen.” His face showed just how true were the words he had spoken, and how embarrassed he was to admit them.

Gully balanced between getting the prince’s hopes up and allowing the man to sink into despair. He had been thinking on their walk into the city, and he had arrived at some hopeful thoughts, but it all depended on Roald.

He squatted down in front of the prince and said, “We will find a way, Thaybrill. Together, we will stop this evil.”

They settled into silence, each lost in his own thoughts, to wait for the return of Gallun and Gellen. Gully drummed his fingers on the thick and wobbly table next to the larder shelf while the prince stared at his own hands and sighed every so often.

It was only a few minutes later when the door opened again, but who stepped through was neither Gallun nor Gellen returning with food. It was Roald.

Roald squinted for a moment at the sight of a person sitting next to the table, then exclaimed, “You’re back!”

He rushed to his brother and grabbed him in his arms tightly, rocking him back and forth with joy. “You’re safe! You’re safe! You have been on my mind constantly, and even more in the last day. Everything has slipped into chaos and madness here in the city! I was so worried for you!”

Roald stepped back, his brown eyes relieved immensely at the sight of his brother’s safe return.

Gully tried to speak, but Roald ignored him and said, “The crown prince himself has been abducted! Many fear him dead and the coronation has, of course, been called off! All of the Guard has been—”

“Roald, please! Stop for a moment!” begged Gully. He pointed behind Roald, to the person now rising from the chair where he had remained seated and unnoticed. The prince lowered his hood hesitantly to uncover his face.

Roald stared and began to ask, “But who is this you have brought...”

As the prince stepped more fully into the firelight, Roald paused and became confused. Recognition of the person before him and the impossibility of whom he believed it to be fought for supremacy inside his mind.

“But... you’re...” Roald turned white and his mouth hung open uselessly.

“Yes, Roald, that is whom you think it is,” affirmed Gully in the ensuing silence.

Roald stared and his jaw moved slightly as if he was trying to speak. He suddenly fell to one knee and dropped his eyes to the floor in front of Thaybrill’s feet.

“Forgive me, Your Highness,” he said breathlessly. “I have never had the honor of seeing you in close and I did not recognize... how can this even be poss—” Roald, still on one knee, glanced back sideways at Gully and asked incredulously, “Was it you?! Did
you
abduct the prince?”

The question broke the prince’s nervousness and he laughed, which made Gully’s heart lighter to hear.

Thaybrill said, “No, certainly not! Rise up, good soldier Roald! Perhaps the only swordsman in the whole of the kingdom whom I trust implicitly at the moment. Stand, please, and I’ll allow no more gestures of ceremony around me.”

Roald slowly stood, still struck in amazement, as Thaybrill passed around him to stand next to Gully. Thaybrill continued, “Your brother, Bayle, is the one who has saved my life! He rescued me from the men that are the true evil behind these crimes, men who have betrayed the kingdom. It is the Domo Regent and the Lord Marshal, lord over all of the Kingdom Guard and the one to whom you pledge loyalty, who are behind my abduction. Behind
all
of the abductions. And the nobleman Chelders veBasstrolle, too! Traitors to the Iisendom, the wicked lot of them!”

Roald practically gasped, “What?! The Lord Marshal, too?”

Before Prince Thaybrill could confirm it, Roald shook his head emphatically and said, “It is of no matter. If the Lord Marshal is a part of this, then I brook no allegiance to him at all. My duty, my loyalty, is to the crown before all else, Sire! That is
you
. It is a blessed gift from the watchful stars above that you are safe, Your Highness!”

Roald glanced at Gully with a fond grin of thanks, then looked back at the prince again. He squinted slightly in curiosity and began, “It is quite—”

Before he could finish his thought, the door to the apartment again opened and two large men stepped in through the doorway.

Roald whipped around at the sound, and at the sight of the two unfamiliar men, he instantly assumed a defensive stance and drew his sword from its sheath on his side in a flash. He stepped in front of the prince to defend him if necessary.

At the sight of a sword drawn on them, Gallun and Gellen dropped the packages with which they had returned and fell into an attack posture. Gully could see in their eyes that they were about to transform into wolf form whether they were wearing clothes or not.

He shouted, “Stop! All of you, stop! Gallun, Gellen, do not!”

Gully jumped around Roald, knocking over a chair, and threw himself between them.

“This is Gallun and Gellen, Roald. They are with us. They are friends,” said Gully. He turned to the fighters and said, “Gellen, Gallun, this is Roald, whom we have come to see and who has just arrived.”

Everyone slowly relaxed out of their tense postures. Gully said, “Careful, Roald, these two are excellent fighters, even without the benefit of weaponry. You’d be hard pressed to find an advantage over either of them. They are good friends, though, and very good men to have on our side, as I will explain.”

The five men settled in, prepared the simple dinner that Gallun and Gellen had brought back, and ate hungrily as Gully related his tale to Roald of all that had happened. He delicately left out the parts of the story that admitted his thieving for fear of the prince’s reaction, and he left out any indication of the balmor natures of the Mercher clan when he described the gypsy people in the woods.

When he got to it, Gully glossed over how he rescued the prince, but Thaybrill would have no part in that. He interrupted Gully and gave Roald a far more richly detailed version of the story. Thaybrill ended his tale of the rescue by commenting, quietly, “I have your brother to thank for my life and continued possession of my tongue.” He glanced one by one at Gully, Gallun and Gellen. “For the first time in my life, I have people, good men, around me that I truly trust and among whom I feel a sense of belonging. I do not know what will become of me, or of Iisen, but I feel more at home with you men than I ever did with the people responsible for raising me.” He looked around the room again fondly, and not without a certain fretfulness over the coming days and weeks. “I count it as a privilege to spend what may be the end, or what may be the beginning, with friends such as you.”

The words warmed Gully, but also made him feel the same again as he had felt about hiding his true self from Gallun and Gellen. He blushed and got up to poke at the fire a few times.

He busied his hands by fetching Roald’s pipe, and the good quality apricot tobacco his brother set aside for special occasions, to give to him. He awkwardly continued on with his story as he did so. He left out the details of the bloody revenge Gallun and Gellen took on the swordsman, unsure how the prince would react to a swordsman’s murder, even if the swordsman was a traitor.

He gave Roald his pipe, and the letter to read as well.

Roald took the letter, noting the blood on it and examining the broken wax seal. As he read, a pallor came over his face and his mouth dropped as the horrible words in the message sank in.

Roald looked up at Gully and the prince, his head shaking back and forth in disbelief. He whispered, “All of this... it’s all designed to allow Maqara to invade! Sending the Guard away to chase after shadows and phantom kidnappers! All of this is to enslave us! We have no time! Less than a week! Only five days! While the Domo Regent sits in the Folly pulling on strings to overthrow Iisen!”

He looked hopelessly at Gully. “And we don’t know whom we can trust and who is a part of this! We have no time to stop this!”

The prince’s face fell along with Roald’s. Gully knew he quickly had to pull them from the despondence into which they were falling. He had hoped Roald would rise to meet the threat facing them, but Gully could see he was overwhelmed.

“Forgive my boldness, Prince Thaybrill, but Roald... Roald, it is not so hopeless as that. I have been thinking as we walked today, and thoughts have begun to form into something that might help us. Roald, I will need your considered thoughts on this as well.”

His brother nodded, desperate for any way out of the impending doom.

“First, though,” said Gully, “how has the disappearance of the prince been handled? What story has been publicly presented by the Domo Regent?”

With shaking hands, Roald lit his pipe to help sooth his nerves. He said, “He has spread lies, as you would expect. He blames, forgive me Gallun and Gellen, the cannibal gypsies for sneaking in and stealing the prince. The citizenry is in a froth from fear of gypsies so stealthy that they can take even the crown prince from under our noses and spirit him out of the city with no one knowing. The Lord Marshal has almost every single guard in the city off looking, based on reports of sightings to the north and west of the city. My squad has only returned today from a search out west towards Dill and we are to go off again tomorrow even farther. The Lord Marshal has mentioned probably calling in veBasstrolle’s contingent of the Guard as well. But after reading this letter, it is clear that was always a part of the plan. It is all a ploy to leave the path from the pass to Lohrdanwuld undefended.”

“We must get Prince Thaybrill into public view as soon as possible. This will expose the Domo Regent as a traitor!” said Roald.

Gully shook his head. “Nay, nay,” he said. “I now believe that this strategy would not work. The Lord Marshal is a part of this. The first thing that would happen is that whatever guards are sent to protect the prince would only be acting to remove him from public view and to remove whoever has helped him, whether they be fellow guards or not. We would all die at their hands this time, without doubt. The Domo would explain it away by saying it was an impostor prince seeking to foment trouble. His plan would hardly suffer at all.”

The room grew quiet and Gully knew he would need to nudge everyone in a better direction.

“They do not know we are in the city, though, and they do not know the prince now has people on his side, one of whom is an honest swordsman. We must cut the head off the viper before it can strike us. Our problem is that it is a three-headed viper,” said Gully. “We need more people on our side,” he prompted.

Roald’s eyes lit up. “My squad! I can bring them here! Once they see the prince alive and well and hear who is truly behind this, they will of course side with us. We can get to the Domo Regent and the Lord Marshal and arrest them before their suspicions are aroused!”

Thaybrill paled slightly. “Are you sure, Roald? Are you sure you can trust these men of yours that they are not a part of this?”

“Without a doubt, Highness!” said Roald enthusiastically. “I spend every day with these men and know them as I know myself. They are not a part of this conspiracy, and I will bet my very life on it.”

Gully said, glad to see Roald on the right track. “Yes, but it is a bigger fight than just that. We will have to work on multiple fronts. How many can you bring ’round, Roald?”

“There are six in my squad.”

“Time is very short and we must also be preparing for an invasion by the Maqarans,” said Gully. “Except we cannot trust any of the Kingdom Guard under veBasstrolle. Who knows how many Guards under him are a part of this!”

Roald stood and puffed on his pipe a few times, his eyes afire with how to proceed. “veBasstrolle’s men would have been the most convenient, but we can send word by swift horse to veKinn’s and veOusthendan’s Guard contingents. We can have them rally and march to the pass in a few days.” Roald breathed out some smoke as he thought through the timing. “Time is tight to gather our forces, and it will still be tricky to protect against the Maqarans with the little bit of information we have. Without knowing their true numbers, how they are armored, and precisely when they begin to move on Iisen, we could still easily be caught unprepared and fail.”

Gully felt stronger now that he was witness to the strategist coming alive in his brother.